Government announcement on bus fares

[Poppinpoppinpopcorn]

Bus fares across the country is to get capped at £2 for a single journey from January. This is amazing news and will help so many people especially those of us who have been paying £3 pound. But I do think London should do this as well as it unfair they will pay less than the rest of the country, as they have done for many years. That way they can make some of the money back.

its £1.75 per journey in London (plus you can change buses within the hour and don’t pay for that part). I think they are due to rise fairly soon though.

The tube is a fortune though and buses are really only good for fairly local journeys. They often go ‘round the houses’ or you have to change part-way. There is the Superloop which is an express service but my nearest stop for that is 15/20 mins walk so negates that fast journey somewhat.

It's not very useful to compare public transport in London to the rest of the country, because of how it's structured - not to mention the huge differences in population and population density.

TFL gets revenue from Ulez charges (£163m last year) and the congestion charge (£286m), which goes into funding and maintaining the public transport network. They get maybe £10m from Santander bikes (which is a lot less than Lime bikes bring in). No doubt there are other funding streams that I don't know about.

Burnham's policy seems like a good one to me. For too long the private transport operators have been gouging the rural residents in any way they can. Just look at PP's example of a bus company splitting the route and then charging double. Outrageous! If nothing else, this might help send a message to commercial operators that they can't exploit the public forever.

Don’t be silly, of course my point was to show how short sighted it is to pick a single item (bus fares) as an example of unfairness between London and the rest of the country, as it is part of a multitude of things that are not all in favour of Londoners.

Obviously public transport is better in London because there are so many users. More users = more money, so tickets can be cheaper. It also means people often travel like sardines in full buses but as many posters have said: swings and roundabouts.

If every bus fare was a pound imagine how busy the buses would always be.

There were 6 people on the bus I got into town one evening last week, that's because it's £2.80 per person for one 5 minutes journey. So that trip made the company £16.80.

If it was a pound and 20 people then used the bus they would make £20.
(It actually seats 40 people so even half empty makes more than the more expensive fare)

It makes sense to makes fares cheap for everyone, everywhere, instead of empty buses driving about.

You missed my point yet again.

Consistent pricing across the whole country would be simpler and cheaper to administer

There is little money available so every decision needs scrutiny for value for money. This would represent better value for money for the taxpayer.

It’s great but public transport needs improving massively across the country. Where we live buses are every half an hour but most often late, sometimes cancelled all together. I gave up with them years ago as a result. Then I go to work in Manchester and the transport system is pretty flawless, London even better obviously. Big cities are already pretty well served, it needs improving in smaller cities and towns so we can actually use the buses.

The other problem ontop of price is how unreliable the bus service is and how long it takes to get places.

To get to my child’s dentist which is a 20 minute drive is an hour on the busses providing they are on time and we don’t have to stop at every stop.

To get there even on £2 tickets would be £8, if I don’t need to take younger children with me, I can get a taxi for £7 and get there in 20minutes. So £1 less and faster plus I could take all the children for that £7. A family day ticket is £12.50 so cheaper to bus for all of us but that’s 2 hours travel minimum to save £1.50.

Odds are though the buss will be late, so now I need to add an extra 20minutes. If tickets are cheap it will be fuller so now we are stopping at every single bloody stop. Best add another 20minutes. Now it’s nearly 2 hours to get to the dentist. Not taking into account still the drivers piss/fag break at the actual station.

Im tired just explaining the trip to the dentist 🤣

Doesn’t each area administer its own fares? There wouldn’t be cost savings from it being simpler.

I don’t know enough about how exactly bus fares are administered over the country to answer your point.
Surly if at the moment it is administered at borough level, changing it to national level would cost money? Do you know how much exactly it costs to administer the different prices? I don’t, but I can’t imagine it is much.

The bus company would have made a loss, not a profit, on that snapshot.

I assume you mean unfunded? Do you expect the government to justify every decision they make to suit you? Or possibly, the Daily Mail? Personally I think it's a great idea. I'd suggest removing free travel for OAPs to fund it. I am an OAP but inclined to think everyone can afford £2 and it would be fairer on everyone.

Such naivity here. If London bus fares rose to the cap, that money would stay with TFL. We do not have a nationalised bus service. All the bus companies, including those in London, are all privately run. The difference is that London has a far denser population and charges £15 for cars to enter the city centre plus a further ££££ for parking. That's why people get the bus, and that's why our buses are full, and that's why London bus companies can charge less.

Wages aren't necessarily more, I'm still on nmw.

Indeed. Also, I’m pretty sure that the huge amounts of rent or mortgage payments in London will very quickly cancel out any 15p ‘saving’.

My school ran its own buses because there weren’t any to the villages.

Our nearest town has a couple of failing crap comps - they've been failing and crap for decades! So the "parents who care" send their kids across the county border to two good schools in the next county. There are no service buses, so both schools organise their own chartered buses from our town - around 8-10 buses between both schools. Lots of local outrage on SM that the new cap won't apply as they're not service buses, so parents still having to fork out several hundred pounds per term (or drive their kids to/from school instead). As there are "nearer" schools (albeit crap), they don't qualify for transport support from the local authority who expect the kids to go to the nearest school, even though they're crap.

Which services would you like to see cut so your council can fund transport into another council area for those children?

@Badbadbunny yes unfortunately that is a loophole for free (or any) transport to school.
It has to be to your nearest/catchment school so if you choose an alternative school it doesn't apply.
This is why in my perfect utopia all schools would be excellent schools and everyone would just go to the local catchment school.

Well, if based on this thread, "no one" is benefitting from this (pesky London have it better than everyone, no one else has any buses), then it really shouldn't be hard to find the funding!

(It is good news for me and my family, we've all been known to hop on a bus)

Transport within London is the most expensive per mile of anywhere in the world, I used to spend 20% of my earnings on transport- which is far too high, especially combined with very expensive rents. Making transport more expensive in London would be very unfair. Although a single journey is £1.75 the average journey is far shorter than elsewhere in the country and a commute often involves 2 or 3 fares.
Everyone outside of London seems to think we get a great deal,we don't, we actually subsidise the rest of the UK.

Feel free to move to London OP to benefit from that 15p a day extra. Your rent in zone 3 for a one bedroom flat will be about £2k a month and your commute to central London will be about £8 a day even without the bus included, but I’m sure it will be worth it for you.

I don't live in London and I never use London buses. I think it's ridiculous to suggest that prices in London should be raised simply to match the rest of the country.

The £2 is a cap, not a target. If local administrations wish to provide further subsidy to reduce fares below the cap,, there is nothing to prevent them from doing so.

Most things in London cost far more than they do elsewhere in the country. I can't say I begrudge them saving a few pence on a bus fare.

How would this work? I expect that most private jet users are not actually British so whatever the UK government does will be of no interest to them.

The small difference in flat fare in London is not very important. What really makes a difference on London is daily and weekly fare capping. And free child fares up to age 11 instead of five in the rest of the country.

In London I can merrily tap on and off knowing that when I hit the daily cap, I won't be charged any more. At home, I can buy a daily ticket that would be worth it after three or four journeys. I often have unexpected trips and think dammit I wish I could go back in time and buy a daily/weekly ticket instead.

Chooses to live in the countryside. Moans about living in the countryside. BTW fuel duty has been held back for years - to benefit people who live rurally